Watering 101

July 2, 2013

...dig before you even start watering. You may find you don’t need to water at all. In a regularly watered bed, the deeper you dig, the more retained moisture you are likely to find, but the first few inches dry out fast. Older, deeper rooted plants don’t mind this so much if the top dries out, because they can reach deep for water, but if you’re dealing with young or shallowly rooted plants, you have to be very careful with the first five inches or...

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Stirred, Not Shaken

Mr. Homegrown

October 23, 2009

Biodynamics, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

27 Comments

...piles. Steiner has the biodynamic farmer spray these preparations on soil, plants and compost piles to act as a kind of homeopathy for the land. While we did not make our own preparations in class (it’s complicated!) we did a ritual stirring with pre-made preparations in buckets of water. Using sticks we created vortexes in the buckets, alternating in clockwise and counterclockwise motions. We then divided the mixture and rushed home to spread it...

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My Big Fat Greek Squash

Mr. Homegrown

September 17, 2009

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

13 Comments

...visit my mom, her Greek neighbor pops over the fence to offer me seeds and plants. He visits Greece each summer and comes back with seeds for plants whose names he can’t translate into English. As a result I always have a few mystery Greek vegetables growing in the garden. This spring he gave me a squash seedling he had propagated. It grew into a massive vine and produced two winter squashes whose weight exceeded the capacity of my kitchen scale....

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Beads and Roman Sandals Won’t Be Seen

Mr. Homegrown

October 9, 2006

Permaculture

...which is essentially a mound. In the permaculture version the water hungry plants are placed at the bottom of the mound and the dry plants at the top, the idea being that the water collects towards the bottom of the mound shaped spiral. We didn’t do the mound thing out of laziness and a lack of materials, and because the herbs we planted don’t require much water anyways. As for the spiral shape itself, we’d like to think that it’s our little tribu...

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Artichoke Season at the Homegrown Revolution Compound

Mr. Homegrown

April 17, 2007

Vegetable Gardening

1 Comment

...t than the Artichoke (Cynara scolymus) which is also one of the most ideal plants for our climate here in coastal California. Let’s count the other reasons: They are perennial, producing and abundant crop starting with the second year. Artichokes are attractive, making an ideal choice for edible landscaping. They spread like crazy. Suckers can be transplanted elsewhere. They’re damn tasty either steamed, combined with pasta or made into an omelet....

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